Jordanian gendarme killed, six wounded by bomb

A gendarme was killed and six officers injured when an explosive device blew up in a village outside Amman, in what government officials have called a terrorist act.

The Jordanian Interior Ministry announced that Sgt Ali Qawqaza of the gendarmerie was killed and six colleagues were injured on Friday night when an improvised explosive device blew up beneath their squad car.

They had been patrolling the village of Fuheis, 12 kilometres west of Amman.

“This cowardly act will only increase our determination to perform our sacred duty to protect the lives of citizens,” the ministry said.

The patrol was part of an increased security presence during the week-long Fuheis Festival, a music festival in the hilly, mainly Christian village of 25,000, which attracts thousands each year. Friday was its last day.

Thousands of Jordanians attended Qawqaza’s funeral in the village of Souf in northern Jordan yesterday. He was recently married and expecting his first child, according to local reports.

Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz took to Twitter to express his condolences over the officer who sacrificed his life “for the sake of the homeland and the nation”.

Mr Razzaz warned the perpetrators that “Jordan will remain the firm sword against the neck of vicious terrorism”.

Jordanian Parliamentary Speaker Atef Tarawneh also denounced the attack, which he called cowardly, saying on Twitter that “the hand of treachery and terrorism will not befall Jordan”.

As of late yesterday, no group or person claimed responsibility for the attack.

Terrorist attacks in Jordan are rare, despite the country sharing a 375-kilometre border with Syria, and 175km border with Iraq.

The last such attack in the kingdom was in December 2016, when an ISIS sleeper cell seized the castle of Karak in the south and killed 10 in a shootout with police.

Analysts and former militants said ISIS has made a concerted effort to target mainly security officials and members of the state in Jordan in a bid to drive a wedge to the people and the state.

But an attack on Jordanian security is widely seen by citizens as an attack on themselves, with many families having one or two members serving in the police, military or anti-riot gendarmerie.

In an opinion poll by the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan last month, Jordanians reported a 92 per cent favourable rating for the police and gendarmerie, compared to 44 per cent for the government and 14 per cent for parliament.